Imagine if the windows in every building in a city could each generate a small amount of electricity from the sun. Those buildings wouldn't need to source power from the national grid. Rather, the windows themselves, combined together, would power the building, in an entirely energy-sustainable fashion.

This is the goal of Dr Jacqui Cole. She leads an interdisciplinary initiative in Molecular Engineering via an alliance between this department, the Cavendish Laboratory (Physics) and a strategic partnership with the UK neutron source (the ISIS Facility) at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Now Jacqui has been given an award to continue the work into the dye molecules needed to realize a next-generation technology of solar-powered windows.

She has been awarded a Tier 1 ALCF Data Science Program (ADSP) by the Argonnne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) for her work on "Data-Driven Molecular Engineering of Solar-Powered Windows".

The project description from the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility states, "Materials discovery of better performing light-absorbing dye molecules will be enabled via a synergistic computational and experimental science approach, wherein machine learning and data mining are used in conjunction with large-scale simulations and experiments to facilitate a materials-by-design workflow. These dye molecules are needed to realize a next-generation technology of solar-powered windows, which are prospected to power buildings in future cities, in an entirely energy-sustainable fashion."

This is one of four projects selected by the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility, to kick off the ALCF Data Science Program. The new initiative, targeted at big data problems that require the scale and performance of leadership-class supercomputers, will enable new science and novel usage modalities on these systems. The ADSP awards are for two years and will be renewed annually. Tier 1 projects will also be supported in part by postdoctoral researchers.

We congratulate Dr Cole on her success in this highly competitive call.